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to be honest, I am still dissatisfied and judge my zazen at times. I usually have a sense of my body becoming still during the end of my zazen. If that doesn't happen in a sitting I tend to get disappointed and do one more sitting few hours later. That usually fixes it. lol.

If not the body becoming still, then some other experience that I seek for (like the sense of time moving very slow during sitting). There is always this seeking to become satisfied with my sitting. even when the sitting is without any method or technique. I am trying not to judge my sitting but somehow cant seem to avoid the manipulative habits

"zazen is good for nothing" seems like a beautiful koan. It is true but is hard for the mind to accept it. to accept that life is complete as it is and that there is no enlightenment beyond practice

I find myself judging my sitting from time to time. It's probably mostly due to the thought, "my sitting," when really it's just, "sitting." I guess the only comfort I can offer is beautiful anicca. No two sessions of Shikantaza will be exactly the same, because in a way it's not the same you practicing. I think Jundo mentioned something in a video about clouds once. Sometimes practice is like the clear blue sky; other times it's spotted with clouds, and still other times it's completely clouded over. The entire time, the placid blue is always present, and we can come to even see it through the clouds. It's interesting those days when the muscles are a bit tighter than usual, or the posture slips, or thoughts seems to circle round and round; one can even sit with all of that. If we don't cling to it or push it away, it often fades into obscurity (literally sometimes my thoughts will grow quieter and quieter, and eventually garbled sounding more like the rushing of a stream than an inner-monologue. Anyway, I'm sure it's natural to judge from time to time. Though when we judge our zazen, we are really judging ourselves, for they are not two.

D˘gen Zenji’s practice of shikantaza is exactly what my late teacher Sawaki K˘d˘ R˘shi called the zazen of just sitting. So for me too, true zazen naturally means shikantaza – just sitting. That is to say that we do not practice zazen to have satori experiences, to solve a lot of koans or receive a transmission certificate. Zazen just means to sit.

...

We must know that Sawaki R˘shi had a Zen master’s character – just as you might imagine it. He was also so charismatic that many, as soon as they first met him, were attracted to him like iron shavings to a magnet. So when R˘shi said, “Zazen is good for absolutely nothing” (this was Sawaki R˘shi’s expression for the zazen which is “beyond gain and beyond satori” [mushotoku-mushogo], then they thought he was just saying that. They thought that their zazen practice would at some point actually be good for something or another. I think that goes for many who practiced with Sawaki R˘shi.

Perhaps those who lived outside and who just came to the temple for zazen or for a sesshin from time to time might not have had these doubts. But those who resolved to give up their former life to become monks and practice the day-to-day, intensive zazen life in the sangha around Sawaki R˘shi, these people sooner or later began to doubt shikantaza.

The reason for this is that no matter how much you sit, you are never fully satisfied with your zazen. “Not fully satisfied” means that it does not feel the way your stomach does after a big meal. So many young people who had dedicated themselves, body and soul, to the practice of zazen began at some point to wonder if they weren’t wasting their youth with this zazen that does not fill them up at all. And many finally left, saying: “Aren’t even the older disciples, who have already been practicing this zazen for years, at bottom just ordinary people? I need satori!”
...

[Dogen Zenji's expression] that “the eyes are horizontal, the nose is vertical” is an expession of this fresh life we are living, breathing this breath in this moment. When we read like this, we see that D˘gen Zenji isn’t talking about some mystical state you might experience during zazen once you get “satori”. He is talking about the most obvious fact – this life right here. ...

Life is this moment is fresh, raw and new. But when we think about this essential fact as an idea in our heads, we get stuck, wondering about what we can understand and what we can force into our categories. When we think about “the freshness of life”, it isn’t fresh anymore, it isn’t alive. Freshness of life means opening the hand of thought. Only when we do so can life be fresh. Zazen is this “opening this hand of thought”. It is the posture of letting go.

Now I have to say a word about the actual practice of shikantaza. Sitting in zazen does not mean that we do not have any thoughts. All kinds of arise. Yet when you follow these thoughts, it can’t be called zazen anymore. You are simply thinking in the posture of zazen. So you have to realize that right now you are practicing zazen and it is not the time for thinking. This is correcting your attitude, correcting your posture, letting the thoughts go and returning to zazen. This is called “awakening from distraction and confusion.”

Another time you might be tired. Then you have to remind yourself that you are practicing zazen right now, and it is not the time for sleeping. This is correcting your attitude, correcting your posture, really opening the eyes and returning to zazen. This is called “Awakening from dullness and fatigue.”

Zazen means awakening from distraction and confusion and from dullness and fatigue, awakening to zazen billions of times. The zazen of living out this fresh and raw life means awakening the mind, certifying through practice billions of times. This is shikantaza. ...

I would like to compare our life to sitting behind the wheel of an automobile. When we drive, it is dangerous to fall sleep at the wheel or to drive drunk. It is also risky to think about other things while driving or to be nervous and tense. That goes as well for sitting behind the wheel of our life. The fundamental approach to driving our life has to consist in waking up from the haze of sleepiness and drunkenness and from the distractions of thinking and nervousness.

...

Some people begin with the practice of shikantaza and then give it up quickly because it does not give them that feeling of fullness or because it bores them. They do so because they only understand this awakening a billion times in their heads. That’s why they think, “Oh no! I have to awaken the mind a billion times? What I need is satori! If I hurry up and get one big satori, I can wrap up this billion-times business in a single stroke!”

It is exactly as if we were told as babies, “From now on you will have to breathe, your whole life long, this very breath, again and again, every single moment. You will breathe in and breathe out billions of times.” What baby would say, “Oh no! I’ve got to find some way to take care of these billion breaths once and for all, with one really big breath…”?

Even if we tried, we would not succeed.

That is why it continues in Hotsumuj˘shin further: “Some people believe that practice is indeed endless but awakening happens only once and that afterwards there is no awakening of the mind. Such a person does not hear the buddha-dharma, does not know the buddha-dharma and has never met the buddha-dharma.”

People who try to get one big satori do not accept that they must live their life with all of its freshness and vigor. Even in strictly biological terms, we can only live by taking this breath in this moment. Living means breathing this breath right now. When it is a matter of living this fresh life, it is of course not enough to simply think about your life in your head. Instead we have got to accept it as the vigorous life that it is. Only like this will we discover an attitude and posture which is fresh and vigorous.

That is what is meant by, “The great matter of lifelong practice has now come to an end.” And at the same time this is where the real practice of shikantaza begins. This is called “the unity of practice and realization” or “practice on the basis of realization”.

That is why Sawaki R˘shi always repeated, “Satori has no beginning. Practice has no end!”

I think, sometimes, dissatisfaction is good, so long as someone does not stop practicing. . . I think these are one kind of weed that Shunryu Suzuki spoke about, nourishing the soil after it is resolved

Living means breathing this breath right now. When it is a matter of living this fresh life, it is of course not enough to simply think about your life in your head. Instead we have got to accept it as the vigorous life that it is. Only like this will we discover an attitude and posture which is fresh and vigorous.

I find myself judging my sitting from time to time. It's probably mostly due to the thought, "my sitting," when really it's just, "sitting." I guess the only comfort I can offer is beautiful anicca. No two sessions of Shikantaza will be exactly the same, because in a way it's not the same you practicing.
Gassho, John

Thanks for the beautiful post John. I like the "my sitting" versus just "sitting" thing you talked about. I guess that's is the cause of all the problems.